


Bucky Comes Out First (But not in the way you think)

by Mysana



Series: Marvel Short Fics [7]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:34:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21582043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mysana/pseuds/Mysana
Summary: Bucky Barnes wakes up
Series: Marvel Short Fics [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/993390
Comments: 10
Kudos: 28





	Bucky Comes Out First (But not in the way you think)

The man looks around, he’s walking along a small road surrounded by open fields as far as the eye can see. When he casts his mind back he can vaguely remember half pushing, half falling out of a metal coffin. He remembers concrete floors and fear. He remembers running. He doesn’t know who he is, or where he is, or how long he’s been going. His feet are bleeding and in the back of his mind he’s reminded that the rocks digging to his feet hurt. He keeps walking.

-O-

A rumble grows as a truck approaches, closer and closer to the man. Part of him wants to hide, but everywhere he looks is open fields. Nowhere to hide. Part of him knows that he can’t survive the sun and the walk forever, and he has no idea how far from a town or city he is. 

The truck, old and open backed, draws to a stop beside him. Inside are two people, a woman at the wheel and a man in shotgun.

“Dude, are you okay?” The woman asks, the window rolled down. The man looks down at his bare chest and bleeding feet.

“No,” he says, unsure of how to continue. When he looks back up, the woman is staring at his arm, but she doesn’t say anything, instead she turns and looks to the man beside her.

“There’s a hospital in Salem, only about 40 minutes from here. We can drive you over there,” The man offers.

“No-“ Panic doesn’t cloud his head so much as freeze it until every thought is crystal clear. If he goes to a hospital then something terrible will happen, a dark voice in his head tells him. A picture of a man- boy? with blond hair comes to mind. He’s coughing and coughing and coughing, but then he looks up and  _ “Can’t afford the hospital,” _ the man says, echoing the boy from his memories.

The woman pauses and the man in the truck rubs his forehead in clearly projected frustration. 

“Look,” the woman says, “if you want, you can come back to Rich and I’s place, we’ll get you some food and some clothes and help you figure out where you need to be.” 

“Okay,” he says, because he thinks that if he needs to, he can get away from them. They are well built, in the way that country kids are, but they aren’t like he is. (Whatever it is, that he is.) There are only two seats in the truck, so he climbs into the back, the black plastic hot to the touch. 

The truck starts up again and although the man can hear that they’re talking, he can’t tell what they’re saying. 

-O-

“I’m Leila, and like I said before, this is my boyfriend, Richard.” The woman - Leila - says, as she opens the door to the house. 

“Hank,” the man says, even though it isn’t. People have names though, and if he doesn’t have a name then they might call the police. He can’t remember why that would be bad, but he knows that it is.

“How did you end up in the middle of nowhere Illinois?”

“I-“ Hank tries to think of an excuse but anything that could work wouldn’t explain why he’s not wearing clothes. “I don’t remember.”

“Do you remember what you took?” Richard asks, allowing Leila to guide Hank into the kitchen.

“Took?”

“What drugs you took? We don’t want to call the police on you or whatever, but my brother’s in med school so I might be able to help figure out what happened.”

“I didn’t take drugs,” Hank says, a vague memory of a woman, her words forgotten. She’s been threatening him in a loving way. He doesn’t think he took any drugs, but then again, how should he know. “I don’t think,” he adds, since he might be wrong.

“Hold off on the interrogation until he eats, ‘kay Rich?”

Hank looks at the food, clearly leftovers from another meal, and after a moment he starts to eat. The second he swallows he’s suddenly starving. 

He comes back to himself as Leila holds his hair as he throws up into a toilet. There’s a vortex of self-hatred growing in his chest at the wasted food but he can’t stop.

-O-

She’s leading him to a bed. His head relaxes on the pillow and exhaustion immediately drowns him.

-O-

He stays with Leila and Richard for a week, learning how the world works. He starts to eat solid food and keeping it down, he watches the news and fills the gaps in his memory. 

Half way through the week he joins Richard where he works as a mechanic. Although he doesn’t remember any of it, he picks up on it so fast he must’ve known about it before. Richard, despite his lingering suspicion, helps teach Hank to fix the cars and tractors that are brought in.

At the end of the week he goes to church with them and thanks them for their help. Leila gives him money for a greyhound and Richard puts together a backpack for him, full of food and clothes. 

-O-

New York is… different from his memories. He knew it would be. It’s still alarming through.

He walks through the streets, letting memories of the sick blond boy and two brown haired girls wash over him. He still doesn’t know why he has a metal arm, but he’s pretty sure is name is Bucky. It’s a stupid name, so he kinda hopes it’s a nickname.

At night he finds a homeless shelter that will let him stay, or else a well protected alleyway. Sometimes people try to cause trouble, but he sleeps lightly and finds that he’s stronger and faster than anyone who tries. 

-O-

Museums have free days, or times, and he goes in and looks around then. 

One of them has an installation on Steve Rogers: the Man Behind the Shield. Bucky laughs a bit, because the tiny blond boy in his memories is also named Steve Rogers. 

_ “A hero?” Bucky asks, a friendly laugh filling the air. _

_ “You know it,” Steve says, grinning like he single handedly won the war. There’s blood on his face, and his right eye is quickly going black. “Steve Rogers, Hero of Brooklyn.” _

_ There’s a quiet moment, and Bucky can’t help the sincerity in his voice when he says, _

_ “I can see it.” _

His Steve is sick; maybe 5’5, if Bucky’s scale is off; less than 100 pounds. The man behind the shield is six-something and Adonis reborn. Still, Bucky can see something of his Steve in Captain America. 

-O-

There’s a mechanic with a  _ Help Needed _ sign in the window, and Bucky doesn’t think much of it when he applies. He doesn’t have a permanent address, and he doesn’t have a phone, and he saw the look on the guy’s face when he said it. He says his name is Luke Stengel

He goes back in a week later, like he said he would though.

“Alright here’s the deal, man,” Mark says, “I’ll pay you $8 an hour, in cash. I won’t ask for an ID or anything. In return, you don’t cause trouble and you help fix up the cars.”

-O-

He’s better at fighting than any of his memories should make him. It’s something ingrained, instinctive.

Memories of back alley fights with the blond boy come to mind. Those are scrappy fights though, fists tossed left and right without clear planning. His actions are smooth and clear, planned and practiced. 

He walks through the Brower Park trying to crack into the locked box of memories that hide in his head. He can sort of maybe remember a uniform? The last clear memory is his arm on a girl’s shoulder, his gaze on Steve, a crowd around them. (A slip of paper in his hand and fear in his heart.  _ He’s such a coward. _ )

Either way, the men who try to mug him on his way home fail, and he doesn’t feel overly guilty for breaking an arm. 

-O-

A month into his new, semi-legal employment, and Mark lets him sleep in the closet-of-a-bedroom he’s not managed to rent out. 

“It’s only until I can get someone to pay for it,” Mark warns. 

Bucky makes dinner as a thank you. 

_ House Rule #1: Mark does all the cooking _ .

-O-

A few months later and Bucky gets in to the sound of Mark, and a distinctly male voice, in the throes of pleasure. He makes a quick exit, trying to remember if the local library is still open. 

-O-

“What? Your parents homophobic or somethin’?” Mark says, dressed up in bright pink tank top and denim booty shorts.

“I don’t remember,” he says, an answer to most of Mark’s personal questions. “I’d like to think they weren’t. People still got killed for ‘lookin’ like queers’ though.” He can kinda remember picking out a special tie for a dance, to signal to those in the know. 

He takes the rainbow feather boa that Mark holds out and wraps it around his neck. He winks at Mark and notices as Mark’s eyes widen, his face turns a bit pink, he looks away.

(His knees ache on the bathroom floor but that’s not what he’s thinking about. No the hand in his hair and the cock in his mouth holds his attention more enough.)

-O-

Bucky knows there’s something off with his memories. In his memories, cars are fancy and televisions are wishful thinking. In his memories there’s no such thing as the Pride parade. 

Bucky thinks he rather likes Pride. (He likes them even more when he learns the history. They make him think of Steve.)

-O-

Searching ‘Bucky’ or ‘Bucky New York’ just shows James “Bucky” Buchanan Barnes, Captain America’s sidekick. Which is entirely unhelpful other than making him huff in laughter. Maybe he and Steve became friends because of their names.

-O-

The recession hits hard in 2008 and by 2009 Bucky’s without a job again, though he still has a place to stay. Mark hadn’t mentioned finding a renter in ages. He can’t get a job at the chains like Starbucks that are always hiring, not without an ID. Smaller shops that might be willing to overlook his dodgy past can’t afford to hire anyone.

He thinks about looking into less legal work, but when he goes to the docks and the areas he thinks of as ‘dodgy’ it’s full of white women with bleached hair and tiny dogs. It’s probably for the best, he’s in enough trouble as it is without getting arrested without any documentation. 

Without a job, and without much savings, he ends up back in soup kitchens.

-O-

Mark jokes that there are always jobs available in the army and Bucky can’t help but wince. (It’s so cold some nights that Bucky and the other men huddle together. Some nightmares he’s strapped down and there’s his voice repeating a mantra he can’t quite identify.)

-O-

In November of 2010 Bucky’s back out of a house. It had been long coming. People couldn’t afford to get their cars fixed so work had dried up for Mark. People were desperate for cheap housing in New York. Mark needed the money, and people were willing to pay for the room. There’s no hard feelings, but it does make the next few months look pretty miserable.

-O-

A blizzard hits in the start of December. The homeless shelters don’t allow people to stay during the day. Bucky spends a lot of time in libraries. He reads, a lot, about everything.

Mechanics, plumbing, mathematics, coding. 

History.

Unlike his previous visit to the museum, Bucky gives it his full attention. 

Steve Rogers. Same name as his Stevie. Same hair, same smile. (There’s a before picture.)

Bucky’s best friend was Captain America. 

(He finds his own bibliography a day later.) 

-O-

A layer of locked up memories is revealed. The memories that had been leaking out flood him. They’re starving, freezing, but never lonely. His  _ sisters _ . His parents. His rabbi giving Bucky a knowing look and a nod. 

He remembers being a sniper. Of knowing that Steve is home safe.

That night he remembers Hydra. Remembers being strapped down. 

Remembers falling. (Remembers surviving. Whatever it took.)

-O-

Bucky visits the Captain America memorial in Central Park. Steve would’ve hated it. He would’ve wanted a charitable foundation, soup kitchen, or something. Something useful. He always wanted to be useful.

Bucky’s tears freeze on his face and the cold brings indistinctly terrible memories to the edge of his mind but he can’t make himself leave. (His shoulder burns where the freezing metal touches.)

(How long did Stevie burn in the icy ocean before his heart finally stopped. Before his nerves went numb and his mind went blank. Bucky knows there’s no chance his boy went gentle into that good night. How long did he suffer?)

-O-

Hydra’s gone. Not just once, but twice. Tony Stark tore it to the ground three years before Bucky woke up. Maybe it’ll rear its ugly head again, but Bucky knows he owes Tony Stark a hundred times over. He remembers waking up inside the metal coffin. He remembers what Hydra made him do. He knows that if Stark hadn’t run them to the ground he would still be stuck, a slave to the people he hated most.

Something vicious smiles within him when he learns about Hydra’s defeat.

-O-

Without a job and without a house and without friends or family, Bucky wanders New York. All day. Everyday.

-O-

Bucky wanders around New York, among the tourists, trying to consciously enjoy the 21st century whenever he gets the chance. He sees the bright signs of Times Square. Usually he prefers to walk around Times Square early in the morning when he can’t sleep, it’s not silent but it’s quieter. Today though, he needs a reminder of why he stays in a future that has moved on. 

A man is running, barefoot, through the crowds, pushing past people and Bucky almost ignores him. But the blond hair pulls his eyes and he finds himself drawn towards him. His memories of the past have been particularly present and painful today, maybe that’s what he can blame it on. 

“Steve?” He says to himself, because the man in front of him looks like Stevie did after the serum. His dominant memories are still of sickly, skinny Steve, but that’s because he doesn’t enjoy dwelling on the war (and what came after). Still, the way he moves is… pure Steve. He’s not crazy, he doesn’t think this man is actually his Steve. He wouldn’t put it past the government to make a clone of him though.

The man’s head snaps towards him though, eyes widening. Bucky can’t hear the word that the man says, but he can read it off his lips. “ _ Bucky?” _

The two of them are moving towards each other before he can make another thought. 

“Stevie?” Bucky pleads, looking at every line in the man’s face, and finding it familiar. 

“Bucky?” There’s far more confusion in the man’s voice. “Bucky, you’re dead.”

“No I’m not,” Bucky insists, “you died. You drove a plane into the ocean.”

“You fell off a train.”

“I survived.”

“…So did I,” the man says, his voice suggesting that he’s not too sure about the idea. “Bucky, what’s going on?”

Bucky is so unsure of how to answer he’s almost ( _ almost)  _ glad for the armoured trunks that draw up around them.

**Author's Note:**

> How do you imagine the Avengers movie would go in this 'verse?


End file.
